Celandine
by phollie
Summary: "So hidden away as you are...when was the last time someone showed you affection? When someone was close to you?" / Sharon consoles Gilbert. K.


This fic is very, very personal to me, perhaps my most personal one yet. It sort of came firing out of nowhere, and I wrote most of it in one sitting so there's likely a ton of mistakes, but it was more of a vent than anything. I hope it's enjoyable in any sense though, haha. (This wasn't written with the intention of being shippy - if anything, I see Sharon as a mother figure to Gilbert, what with the scenes we've been shown between them. I really like the interactions between these two a lot.)

Celandine is a flower that represents joys to come.

Takes place during Oz's absence.

* * *

><p><em>I did not like to be touched, but it was a strange dislike. I did not like to be touched because I craved it too much. I wanted to be held very tight so that I would not break. Even now, when people lean down to touch me, or hug me, or put a hand on my shoulder, I hold my breath. I turn my face. I want to cry. – Marya Hornbacher<em>

/

There's chamomile tea by the kettleful, and sunlight pouring in in droves, but Gilbert is still a figure of morose darkness on the other side of the table. He's jittery and on edge, as usual, but there's a different sort of tension rattling his bones this mid-morning that Sharon, ever the smart, perceptive girl, picks up on within moments of pouring him his first cup of steaming amber. Of course, she already had a good idea of the state of the man's heart from merely passing him by in the hall, seeing his shoulders rounded in a slouch and his hair slipping messily out of its ribbon; his face had been as pale as it is right now, waxen and washed out, and she recalls how he jumped as if frightened when she happened to address him with a cheerful bid of a good morning. Gilbert had avoided her eye at once, moodily nodding to her a wordless hello before attempting to carry on walking (more like skulking, but Sharon hadn't deemed it a good idea to point that out), until a gentle tug of his sleeve, a good-natured threat from Sharon's lips, and a defeated nod of Gilbert's head led them to where they are now. The sunny tea-room is, after all, always accommodating.

But so far, it's solving nothing. Gilbert is as distant and shadowy as ever, getting paler and sadder and smaller by the moment. He hasn't touched his tea, and Sharon would normally have it in her to feign heartbreak over his neglect, but now isn't the time. There's something heavier hanging over the man's head today, like a big dusty raincloud fashioned especially for him, and even the great fun found in teasing this man isn't apparent today; it's been replaced with that maternal worry that so frequently guides her to this place, just as the same childish sort of sorrow has brought Gilbert almost directly to her in spite of their accidental meet in the hall.

"You've been locked away in your room for so long, I've almost forgotten what you look like," Sharon says, admitting a small laugh as she reaches for the silver tray dressed with petite fours and other pale, sweet things dusted with white sugar. Gilbert won't accept any of them, not with his fussy stomach, but she'll offer nonetheless. "Macaroon?"

Just as expected, Gilbert gives a solemn shake of his head, eyes focused on the floor as he wrings his hands out in his lap. After a moment, he reaches behind his head and pulls the ribbon free from his hair so as to play with it with distracted fingers, winding the strip of blue silk around his slender wrist, then unwinding it, only to repeat the pattern yet again like idle clockwork. His hair has gotten longer, Sharon notices, grazing his shoulders now – it suits him quite prettily, and yet it's a symbol of his self-neglect after having stowed away in the privacy of his own quarters long enough for any change to become so noticeable. The weight of such solitude must be crushing, so why does he inflict it upon himself so ceremoniously? Gilbert may be of a more cold nature than deemed appropriate, but he's certainly not unlikeable; there are countless people he could turn to in times of loneliness, yet he will see to none of them. Even being here with Sharon herself seems to come off as a chore to him, what with how tired and detached he looks sitting opposite of her, bathed in sunlight but all the more melancholy for it. He must think he doesn't deserve a sun of his own. Sharon thinks upon this and takes a pink macaroon from the tray, nibbling daintily on it before setting its remaining half on the china plate before her. "Even Break has been asking about you, isn't that uncanny?" Sharon permits another tiny, genial laugh, all the while staring at Gilbert's untouched tea cup. He could at least take a _sip. _"How strange of him to assume I'd have more counsel over you than he does…"

Gilbert lifts a hand to rub at his eye. He doesn't seem fazed by Sharon's words in the slightest; she wonders if he even heard her at all. Perhaps being away from others for so long has made him forget the art of conversation completely – oh, but that's a very, very silly thought, and one that Sharon does away with as soon as it arrives. Instead, she turns her focus to Gilbert's strange habit of seemingly cradling himself at all times; from wrapping his arm around his stomach to rubbing his shoulder to crossing one leg tightly over the other, he's always in contact with himself, enchained to his own being as if afraid of drifting away or being rendered imaginary, worthless. Sharon has never quite seen such an anomaly before, and her concerns materialize on a hushed, gentle question: "How long has it been?"

The inquiry is soft, but Gilbert's eyes flit up on a startled blink, his entire body going immediately tense. "What do you mean?" His words come out quick and sharp even on a murmur, as if afraid someone may hear him and make judgments of their own. What is eating at him like this? What is he so afraid of?

"I think you know very well what I mean," Sharon says gently, reaching across the table with a gloved hand to settle atop his. Gilbert retracts his arm at once at the gesture, skittish like a bird caught in a cage, and Sharon frowns, disappointed. "So hidden away as you are…when was the last time someone showed you affection? When someone was close to you?"

There's something tragic in Gilbert's eyes when he looks up at her with a quick jerk of his head. He looks so pale, even when a touch of heat rises in his cheeks and dusts them pink. "I – that's not – "

"Won't you let me help?"

Gilbert turns his gaze to the side, clenching his fist atop the table. The bones of his knuckles shift beneath the white silk of his glove. "You're not _actually_ trying to help," he grumbles.

"Yes, I am."

"…You'll run off and tell Break everything."

"No, I won't."

Gilbert's only response is a scoff, but Sharon can see something else beginning to bubble up in him and make itself known to her; she wonders if he even notices it himself, that strange upheaval of something like grief begging to spill from him, like some innocent desperation for closeness that Sharon knows he so feverishly needs. Gilbert is, after all, quite the hungry creature, needing to be touched and validated and paid attention to before he crumbles beneath the weight of his own wants and needs, the same desires he's so afraid to admit and tend to. It's quite saddening, Sharon thinks, that the man would sooner run from any sign of help rather than surrender to it. Is it pride that drives him to these low states of his? Or is it something else?

Nevertheless, Sharon watches him with quiet eyes, watches as he curls deeper into himself in his uptight position – legs crossed, knee bouncing nervously, one elbow resting on his thigh as he picks anxiously at his bottom lip with clumsy, shaking fingers. His gaze has landed somewhere faraway, somewhere on the marble floor and likely drilling eighty miles beneath the surface of it, but Sharon can still keep track of him here, can still keep watch over this sad child like the mother she knows he's never had. Still reaching for his recoiled hand, she adds, "You don't have to put it to words if you don't want to."

"I _don't_," Gilbert retorts, albeit weakly. His wall is coming down.

"Then that's fine, once again." Sharon scoots her chair closer to the table; her arm isn't long enough to reach across properly, and that stunt in growth is a small tragedy that she has well moved past, for the most part. "You can just stay where you are and not say a word, Gilbert. It's okay."

Something seems to come undone within Gilbert at that moment, and he lifts his head a fraction, looking just past Sharon's shoulder with mournful, heavy eyes. He seems of the mind to say something, but decides otherwise within the same second, pursing his lips in a tight line that wavers on a shaky inhale through his nose. His hand atop the table slowly relaxes from its balled-up fist, just as his shoulders slump forward and his head bows, as if his entire body has become too heavy to support any longer. "It's…"

Sharon leans forward a bit, head tipped to the side, her smile soft and waiting.

Gilbert takes a sharp, shuddering breath. Everything within him seems to tighten again, before finally unwinding on a hoarse exhalation of, "Been a long time."

There's a shift in the man's eyes, a heavy one, and Sharon is quick to act; she reaches for him again, relieved when he doesn't back away, and settles her hand atop his. It barely covers his, looking so tiny and minute in comparison, but the gesture is what he needs, no matter how small. "Gilbert…"

Just as she expects, it's his breaking point. Gilbert's face crumples quite horribly, tears spilling from tired eyes as a shaky gasp precursors a choked-off sob; the sound of it is so juvenile, so long pent up in the body of a grown man seemingly trapped in his child's mind, and Sharon shivers at that revelation and quietly rises from her chair to come around to the other side of the table. Gilbert doesn't notice her movement, however, so wrapped up in covering his mouth with his hand and quaking in his seat as he cries and cries like something lost and needing to be found. Thankfully, Sharon finds him just in time – she's never lost him, not once during moments like these – and kneels before him, taffeta skirts pooling all around her in a soft violet puddle. Gilbert is quick to recoil further and turns his face away, but Sharon lets him; she'll just catch his wrists and kiss his palms and let him fold in half until he's a tight little ball of shivery nerves and breathy weeps that could never get past her ears, no matter how skilled at hiding he's become over these past few years. His dark hair falls down his cheeks, messy and uncombed but still soft to the touch when Sharon rests her hand atop his head and coos quiet promises of _this too shall pass_ and _tomorrow is another day_ and _there are people you can lean on in times like these, don't you see? I'm one of them. Break, too, although you may not believe it…_

Gilbert fights against that last point, shaking his head and weeping into his hands, and Sharon thinks the man would change his mind were he to look up and see the silvery figure of Xerxes Break standing in the open doorway, his gaze blank even in the midst of what looks like shell-shocked concern. Looking past Gilbert's trembling shoulder, Sharon offers Break a small, sage nod – _I can handle this; he'll be okay – _before he comes to his wits again and gives a short bow, drifting off down the hall without a word.


End file.
